Giant's Bread

London's new opera house celebrates its grand opening with a new opera called The Giant.  Carl Bowerman, a distinguished and elderly art critic, does not like the new opera.  He joins the opera house owner, Sebastien Levinne, for a drink.  Bowerman points out that Boris Groen, the composer of the opera, has a similar style to Vernone Deyre, a composer who was killed in the First World War.

Vernon, who grew up in the Victorian era, was the son of a soldier father, Walter, and an emotionally clingy mother.  He was raised largely by his nurse.  While Vernon had no friends, he had four imaginary friends who lived on the grounds, the most important of which was Mr. Green.  Vernon's Uncle Sydney, who has a manufacturing business in Birmingham, makes him feel uncomfortable while Walter's sister, who plays the grand piano in his house, gives him a good feeling.  

Aunt Ninas marriage breaks up making her a single mom to Josephine.  In the meantime, Walter goes off to fight in the Boer War.  Aunt Nina dies and Myra takes in Josephine to the delight of Vernon who now has a playmate.  A new family comes to town named Levinne who are held in disdain because they are Jewish.  However, in time the Levinne's are accepted by the locals.  Vernon and Josephine make good friends with their son, Sebastien.  

In the meantime, Walter is killed in action and Vernon is set to inherit the family estate when he comes of age.  Myra and Josephine, short on money, move to Birminghamm to be close to Uncle Sydney.  Elven years pass in which Vernon and Sebastien remain friends.  Sebastien's father dies and he inherits millions, but Vernon continues to be short on money.  He goes to work at Uncle Sydney's manufacturing firm.  In the meantime, he is invited to a charity concert at Albert where he has a life changing moment:  he starts to love music and decides to become a composer.

Vernon meets up with Nell Vereker, an old school chum from Cambridge, and they fall in love.  However, both Nell's mother and Vernon's Uncle Sydney think that he is not rich enough for Nell and convince him to postpone marriage.  In the meantime, Vernon starts seeing a woman ten years his senior named Jane who encourages him to pursue his music and quit the manufacturing firm.  Vernon's bites the bullet and proposes to Nell who, to spite him, runs off and gets engaged to another man.  Vernon in turn runs into the arms of Jane.  

Four days after the outbreak of World War I, Nell and Vernon meet again and she admits that she is still in love with him.  They are married later that afternoon after she finds out that Nell has enlisted.  Six months later, Vernon goes off to war and Nell becomes a VAD nurse.  However, later she finds out that Vernon has been killed in action.  As his widow she inherits his estate and sells the property.  Her former flame, George, buys it, proposes marriage and she accepts.

In neutral Holland in 1917, Vernon has escaped from a German prisoner of war camp.  He reads a magazine and discovers that Nell has remarried.  Despondent, he throws himself in the path of an oncoming truck.  He survives, but suffers amnesia.   Vernon becomes a chauffeur and meets a wealthy American who is visiting England.  The American introduces him to a friend who in turn leads him to his wife, Nell.  She gets him professional help and he declares he wants to get back together.  Nell, frightened, lies and says she is pregnant by George.

In the meantime, Vernon and Jane reunite and travel to Russia where he is taken by the avant-garde music.  A telegram from New York stating that Josephine is gravely ill sends them sailing across the Atlantic.  The ship, hit by an iceberg, starts to sink.  In the commotion, Vernon spots Nell who begs him to save her.  Vernon grabs Nell as Jane, with a horrified look on her face, goes "down into that green swirl."  In New York, Vernon confesses to Sebastian that he let the love of his life drown.  Torn by emotion, he puts his heart and soul into a composition and the result is The Giant.

http://www.agathachristie.com/stories/giants-bread

The Freedom Riders

wordpress.com

Attacked by a white mob when participating in the first Freedom Ride in 1961, James Peck lay on an operating table as a doctor closed a head wound 4 inches long.  In total, he required 50 stitches.  Once sewn up, James was asked by an Anniston, Alabama reporter if now that he was seriously injured, would he abandon the ride.  His response?  “I’ll be on the bus tomorrow for Montgomery.”

The first Freedom Ride bus left Washington D.C. on May 4, 1961 filled with 13 riders, 7 Black and 6 White.  Their aim was to ride through several Southern States as an integrated party.  They planned to arrive in New Orleans, Louisiana on May 17.  No incidents occurred in Virginia.  However, when the Greyhound bus reached South Carolina, one of its occupants, John Lewis, was attacked.  Arrests for alleged violations of the segregation laws took place in North Carolina, South Carolina and Mississippi.

                                

Map of Freedom Ride routes courtesy blogspot.com.

In Birmingham, the Klu Klux Klan planned an assault on the Freedom Riders, sanctioned by the local police who said they would give them 15 minutes to attack before they arrived.  On Mother’s Day Sunday, a white mob, some still wearing their church clothes, attacked the Greyhound bus, slashing the tires.  In fear, the bus driver put the petal to the metal, but the angry mob followed in hot pursuit in cars.  They chased the crippled bus which soon blew some tires and was forced to stop.  The mob firebombed the bus and then held the doors shut, trapping the Freedom Riders.  Either an exploding fuel tank or a trooper with a revolver forced the mob members to retreat, enabling the riders to make a hasty exit.  The mob still beat the riders, and if not for the arrival of a trooper with a revolver, would have likely lynched them.

Birmingham Bus Station courtesy crmvet.org.  Note the "Colored Waiting Room" sign, indicative of why the Freedom Riders were protesting.

Hospitalized, many of the Freedom Writers were refused care.  Hospital officials released then at 2:00 am, fearful of the mob assembling outside the hospital’s doors. 

President Kennedy saw the image of the burning bus on his television screen.  Knowing he must act, he put pressure on the Greyhound bus drivers to complete the ride.  They refused and therefore Kennedy offered them a police escort to which they said yes.  Driving down the Alabama freeway at 90 miles an hour, the riders remained safe with the Alabama State Highway Patrol at their side.  But they were abandoned by the escort at the Montgomery city limits.  An angry mob greeted them at the bus station, which started to beat the riders while the local police looked the other way.  Reporters and photographers were attacked first so there would be no evidence of the assault.  Ambulance drivers refused to transport the injured riders to the hospital; it was local black residents who rescued the wounded riders. 

media.npr.org

The freedom riders finally arrived at First Baptist Church in Montgomery where they were greeted by a crowd of 1500 people to honour their efforts.  Martin Luther King addressed the congregation along with Ralph Abernathy.  After the service, Dr. King was told that an angry white mob totalling 3000 was outside waiting to pounce on the parishioners.  Rocks flew through the stained glass windows.  Tear gas canisters were released.  Armed black taxi drivers arrived to rescue those inside.  However, fearful of more violence, Dr. King managed to talk the taxi drivers into leaving.  The National Guard arrived later and dispersed the angry mob. 

The second Freedom Ride bus to leave Washington D.C. in May, a Trailways vehicle, received a similar reception as it made its way through the Southern states.  In Birmingham, KKK members, along with police officers led by Commissioner Bull Connor, attacked the non-violent protesters using baseball bats, iron pipes and bicycle chains, leaving them semi-conscious.  This was where rider James Peck ended up with a four-inch gash on his head.  He was refused treatment at the first hospital he went to, but he was treated at the second one.  

                          

Klansmen attacking a Freedom Rider in May 1961 courtesy neh.gov.

In total, there were 60 Freedom Riders that participated that first summer.  More than three hundred arrests were made.  Many of the riders chose to stay in jail rather than post bail.  In groups, they sang freedom songs to help pass the time and boost morale.  One sheriff was so annoyed by their singing that he personally drove a group up to the Tennessee border.  Another group had their mattresses, sheets and toothbrushes confiscated.  But still they sang.

On September 22, 1961,  the I.C.C. outlawed segregation on Interstate Busses.  All "Whites Only" signs were ordered removed by November of that year.  

For more information, read:

1. Freedom Ride, James Peck, 1962.
2. Walking with the Wind:  A Memoir of the Movement, John Lewis, 1998.
3. Freedom Writers:  1961 and the Struggle for Racial Justice, Raymond Arsenault, 2011.

,

President Barack Obama's "This is Your Victory"

Two hundred and forty thousand people assembled in Chicago's Grant Park to hear Barack Obama deliver his victory speech after the 2008 election.  He would not be the first president to hail from Chicago (Lincoln preceded him), he would not be the first youthful president (remember JFK?) but he would be America's first black President.  Here is an excerpt from the brilliant speech that he delivered on that fateful night:

"This election had many firsts and many stories that will be told for generations.  But one that's on my mind tonight's about a woman who cast her ballot in Atlanta.  She's a lot like millions of others who stood in line to make their voice heard in this election except for one thing:  Ann Nixon Cooper is 106 years old.  

She was born just a generation past slavery; a time when there were no cars on the road or planes in the sky; when someone like her couldn't vote for two reasons -- because she was a woman and because of the color of her skin.  

And tonight I think about all she's seen throughout her century in America -- the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress; the times we were told that we can't; and the people that pressed on with that American creed:  Yes we can.

At a time when women's voices were silenced and their hopes dismissed, she lived to see them stand up and speak out and reach for the ballot.  Yes we can.

When there was despair in the dust bowl and depression across the land, she saw a nation conquer fear itself with a New Deal, new jobs, a new sense of common purpose.  Yes we can.

When the bombs fell on our harbor and tyranny threatened the world, she was there to witness a generation rise to greatness and a democracy was saved.  Yes we can.

She was there for the buses in Montgomery, the hoses in Birmingham, a bridge in Selma, and a preacher from Atlanta who told a people that We Shall Overcome.  Yes we can.

A man touched down on the moon, a wall came down in Berlin, a world was connected by our own science and imagination.  

And this year, in this election, she touched her finger to a screen, and cast her vote after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change.

Yes we can.

America, we have come so far.  We have seen so much.  But there is so much more to do.  So tonight, let us ask ourselves -- if our children should live to see the next century; if my daughters should be so lucky to live as long as Ann Nixon Cooper, what change will they see?  What progress will we have made?

This is our chance to answer that call.  This is our moment."

(https://au.lifestyle.yahoo.com/marie-claire/news-and-views/latest/a/18672507/the-most-inspirational-speeches-of-all-time/)

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/11/04/obama.transcript/

Let's Burn This B**** Down!

"Let's burn this b**** down!" cried the stepfather of Michael Brown after he heard the not guilty verdict handed down by the grand jury in the killing of his stepson (see the Youtube video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vW2HF5JzK-M).  Others standing in the street took up the chant. By the end of the night, Ferguson was ablaze.

     Martin Luther King Junior would be turning over in his grave.  Take a look at the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950's and 1960's.  I don't remember Martin Luther King Jr. taunting the police when a cross was burned on his front lawn in 1956.  I don't remember Martin Luther King Jr. torching a police car when his house was bombed.  I don't remember Martin Luther King Jr. running away with boxes of donuts when he participated in the sit in at an Atlanta lunch counter in 1960.  I don't remember the civil rights leader lobbing Molotov cocktails into the streets of Selma, Alabama as he marched with hundreds of suit-clad protesters to Montgomery in 1963.  I don't remember the Atlanta native throwing rocks and bottles through Atlanta window fronts as he marched through his hometown.  I don't remember the father of four torching a Montgomery Walgreen's after four young black girls were murdered at the Baptist Church.  I don't remember the pastor running away with a box of tequila from a liquor store, likely owned by blacks, as he protested the lack of voting rights for blacks.  I don't remember the words "Let's burn this b**** down!" being part of the great orator's famous "I have a dream speech" which he delivered from the steps of the Lincoln Monument in Washington.

     But I do remember the 90% of blacks who refused to ride the Montgomery busses after Rosa Parks was arrested for refusing to give up her seat to a white person, an initiative started by King's organization.  I do remember the hundreds of protesters who sat at lunch counters, dignity oozing from every pore, as hooligans showered them with ketchup and mustard.  I do remember the long line of followers who marched with Martin Luther King Jr. from Selma to Montgomery, Alabama.  I remember the pastor's prayer as he languished in a Birmingham Jail cell.  I remember the 200,000 plus protesters who marched through Washington D.C.'s streets and then listened to King deliver his I Have a Dream speech.  I remember President Kennedy's famous civil rights speech.  And a little document called the Civil Rights Act, signed by President Johnson in 1964.

     Let's bring back Martin Luther King Jr.'s quiet dignity.  Quiet, but powerful.

March on Washington D.C. courtesy 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_on_Washington_for_Jobs_and_Freedom.